We've been excited about the big-screen adaptation of Richelle Mead's fabulous and fun Vampire Academy series, about a half-vampire teen training to be a bodyguard for her noble vamp best friend, ever since Don Murphy and Michael Preger announced they would be producing the films, but we worried the movies might dumb down Mead's sharp-edged world. It turns out, though, that the movie is in the hands of two fellows who have seen the dark side of high school. Mean Girls director Mark Waters will be sitting in the director's chair, and his brother, Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters, is writing the script.

Deadline reports that not only have the brothers signed on to the first film, titled Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, they've already cast their three central characters. Zoey Deutch, who plays Emily in the upcoming Beautiful Creatures, will portray Rose, the dhampir training to become a bodyguard within vampire society, and Australian actress Lucy Fry will play her best friend, the beloved Moroi vampire Lissa. Russian actor Danila Kozlovskiy has been cast as the Siberian dhampir Dmitri, Rose's charming fighting instructor.

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Vampire Academy is set in a world populated by two types of vampires: the benevolent, mortal Moroi and the evil, undead Strigoi. The Strigoi are determined to eradicate the Moroi, and so it falls to the part-vampire, part-human dhampir, who are physically stronger than either of their parent species, to act as protectors for the Moroi. Lissa and Rose, who are psychically linked, are high school students at St. Vladimir's Academy for Moroi and dhampirs, preparing for their distinct but hopefully connected futures in Moroi society. The books combine the interpersonal drama of high school with the violent war between the Moroi and Strigoi, plus a dose of classism and coming-of-age realizations. The Waters brothers may be just the team to balance all those elements, and temper the series' violence with a wicked sense of humor.